Let's Make: Chocolate Cherry Macarons - French Macarons: Worth The Calories (And Tears)?

Ingredients:

For the French meringues:

100 g Almond Flour

100 g Powdered Sugar

100 g Sugar

10 g Cocoa powder

20 g Cherry Powder

1/4 tsp Cream of Tartar

100 g Egg Whites (room temperature)

1/2 tsp Salt

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

For the cherry chocolate ganache:

120 g Dark Chocolate

85 g Cream

100 g Cherries (pitted)

15 g Kirsch

25 g Butter

1/2 tsp Salt

10 g Cherry Powder

Instructions:

Combine almond flour, powdered sugar, cocoa powder and cherry powder in a food processor and blitz for a minute or two.

Into a large bowl rub through a sieve. In the bowl of a stand mixer add your egg whites and salt and whisk until soft peaks start to form. Add your sugar in 3 batches and mix thoroughly. Add cream or tartar, mix to combine. Then the vanilla extract and whip until stiff peaks form.

Add the meringue to the sifted dry ingredients and gently scrape and fold about 40 times, or until a consistency of honey is attained. Fill a piping bag with the mixture and pipe onto a silicone baking sheet with stencils to aid with consistency.

Drop the sheet tray against the table a bunch of times, to help aid spreading and to encourage air bubbles to rise to the surface. Then go through a poke any obvious bubbles with a skewer or something pointy to help decrease cracking and wonky shaped meringues forming.

Let rest for 30 minutes at room temperature, or as long as it takes to form a skin on the surface.

Preheat oven to 140º C (280º F). And bake for 20 minutes, rotating the tray halfway through. Place on a cooling rack until totally cool.

To make the chocolate cherry ganache, heat up butter in saucepan until frothy, add the pitted cherries and cook on medium/low heat for 5 minutes. Add the kirsch and cherry powder and continue to cook for another ten minutes, or until cherries are beginning to break down.

Pour mixture into a food processor or blender and process until smooth. Set aside.

Chop up dark chocolate into small pieces. Add cream to the saucepan and heat until simmering and remove from the heat. Add dark chocolate and swirl to ensure coverage, and cover for 10 minutes. Whisk until smooth. Add cherry puree and whisk again until smooth.

Place saucepan in the refrigerator for 10 to 20 minutes, checking periodically and stirring to attain a pipeable consistency that is a bit softer than frosting.

Go through and match the meringue shells in size as close as possible, they will be slightly different. With your setup ganache placed in a piping bag, dollop a generous portion onto each half of the halves and then gently sandwich them together.

Allow to the chocolate ganache to setup before eating (or not) if you can.